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23 April 2013

A Shadow Rises [guest post!]

Hadakha tore his attention from the massive Sha feeding on the armies
below to the walls of Dawn's Blossom, where Mayor Windfur and a few
guards were trying to maintain order amongst the panic. Half of the
citizens there were standing slack-jawed in shock, staring out at the
monster in the valley and the remains of the jade statue, while the
other half fled screaming into the town, trampling anyone who got in
the way. Lorewalker Cho ignored it all, intent on the Sha and
muttering to himself. Hadakha glided down to land beside him as he
nodded to himself and turned to the mayor.

"What do you have, to fight it? I can't believe Taran Zhu would
leave you defenceless against a Sha outbreak, not a town this close
to the Temple."

Windfur nodded distractedly, still issuing orders to his guards.
Finally he answered Cho. "I'll have to go and get them myself,
since I have the only key."

Hadakha broke in. "I could go. I can move much faster through
all this than you, after all."

The mayor shot him a dark look. "You wouldn't know where to
look. And I think your kind have done enough already, tauren."

Ignoring the hostile tone, Hadakha shrugged. "Alright, I will
carry you then. Speed is crucial, isn't it?" Without waiting for
an answer, he flowed into stagform and stamped a hoof impatiently.
When Windfur continued glowering at him, Cho stepped in and gave him
a shove.

"Go! We don't have time for this! It will come for
Dawn's Blossom next! I will meet you at the gate." Reluctantly,
the mayor clambered onto Hadakha's back, muttered "My home,"
and they were off.

They darted through the chaos of the streets, Mayor Windfur bellowing
at people to make way, and soon arrived at his mansion. Sliding off
Hadakha's back, Windfur thrust a finger at his face. "You stay
here!" he almost snarled, then ran into the building. Not long
after, servants starting boiling out of the mansion, looking scared
as they hurried off. Hadakha waited, watching the crowds become
slowly more organised as guards directed people towards the northern
gate. Finally, the mayor emerged, carrying some sacks, each about the
size of a pandaren's head, that clinked as he once more climbed onto
Hadakha's back.

The return journey through the town was much slower, since they were
now going against the flow of the traffic. Even Windfur's bellowing
couldn't speed their progress much. But it was easier once they
neared the southern gate, most of the population having moved away by
then. They found Lorewalker Cho standing near the portal, and to
Hadakha's surprise he was talking to a large, fuschia cloud serpent
that was hovering over him. As they trotted up, Cho pointed at
Hadakha, seemed to argue with the cloud serpent for a few moments,
then greeted them with a grim expression.

"Mishi here has just come from the Temple. The sha have erupted
all over the temple grounds, and the monks are fighting to contain
them. We can expect no aid from them, which means we have to deal
with this ourselves. What did you bring?"

Windfur handed over a
sack, which Cho untied and opened curiously. "The Shado-Pan
brought these to me, as a first line of defence until help arrived,"
the mayor explained as Cho plucked out a tiny brass bell. "They
are crafted for pure harmony, and blessed by Yu'lon herself. As sha
are the product of negative emotion, these bells should disrupt their
physical forms and disperse their energy." He frowned
doubtfully. "But I don't know that they were designed to fight
against something as big as that thing out there."

Hadakha grabbed a sack and started tying it to his belt. "Well,
only one way to find out," he said, "and it's our only
option at this stage." Windfur made to protest, but Cho nodded
in agreement.

"Yes, we have to try. Mishi will take you there.
Drop the bells near or in those fissures we saw, they seem to be the
source of the Sha's energy." He helped tie the sacks to
Hadakha's clothing, while the mayor spluttered impotently. Then,
clapping the bulging, clinking tauren on the back, he said "The
Lorewalkers keep a residence in the Temple grounds. I need to check
the scrolls there, see if there is anything else we can do to fix
this whole mess. Take care of those fissures, then head over to the
Temple grounds and help the monks. I will meet you there. Good luck,
my friend."

With a nod, Hadakha mounted the cloud serpent and they flew out over
the valley. He found the undulating movement very disconcerting, but
forced himself to ignore it and study the cracked, broken ground.
From the air it was even more clear that the large fissures were
spewing out the black smoke, and Mishi obviously saw it too, heading
straight for the closest one. He opened the first sack and tried to
pick out a bell, but his large fingers were too bulky for such
precision. Instead, he scooped out a half handful, letting the bells
roll around on his palm, their bright, clear peals somehow
penetrating even the wind-noise and the horrible screams and
squelching from the battlefield below. Judging their course, he
tipped his palm over and dropped the bells into the fissure.

Mishi halted as they watched the results. Only...there was no change.
Scooping out a full handful now, he scattered the bells across the
fissure, again watching for a reaction. Was the smoke lessening? He
dug into the sack again and again, strewing the bells about to cover
the area around the fissure as well. Each time, the smoke visibly
dissipated a little more. Finally, with most of the bells used up,
the smoke cleared to reveal unbroken ground, though it was still grey
and lifeless.

They moved on to the next crack, and this time he knew how many he
needed to sow. Casting bells about with abandon, he stopped only to
check that this ground, too, had mended, before he was urging Mishi
on to the next one. En route, he noticed that the Sha had diminished
in size, and was thrashing about as if in agony. It was still feeding
on the hapless soldiers, but it seemed more...frantic now. They went
from fissure to fissure, driving back the smoke and healing the
tortured ground, and each time the Sha shrank a little more, leaving
behind multitudes of small, goblin-sized versions of itself that
continued to gorge.

Casting around for more fissures, he noticed a couple of small
figures racing across the valley from the south. One was humanoid,
but the other, streaking ahead, was unmistakably a feline shape. He
shook his head, wondering whether exhaustion was making him
hallucinate, but the figures continued to charge in, tearing into the
little sha. Could it be...Akabeko? If so, he was glad she was still
alive. But right now he had a job to finish. Spotting the final
remaining smoke-gushing fissure, they flew in and dumped the last
sack of bells on the area.

As the bells tumbled down, the Sha gave another piercing shriek and
dissolved into a formless, inky cloud. Rather than dissipating,
however, the cloud fled, flowing across the ground towards the Temple
at an incredible speed. With a shout, Hadakha and Mishi raced after
it, but even the cloud serpent could not match its pace, and they
watched as it flowed through the Temple gates and disappeared inside.

There was no sign of the cloud when Mishi landed in a courtyard near
the temple itself, but as Hadakha jumped to the ground he saw there
was still much to do. Chaos reigned in the temple grounds, with
dozens of monks fighting off scores of sha creatures. Mishi sped off
as he looked around, darting in to snap the sha up in its jaws and
tear them apart, then moving away to do the same to the next pack.
Hadakha swiftly changed into lionform and followed suit, clawing and
ripping his way savagely through the foul flesh of the nearest sha.

He saw the greatest concentration of fighting around a large
building, the inn he'd heard about last time, perhaps? Starting
towards it, he was confronted by a group of sha who reached out to
him hungrily. He ripped the first one apart, then his fury was
shocked out of him when one of them spoke.

She is useless.

The words hissed in his mind. Batting aside a questing limb, he tore
into another one.

She is pathetic.

Enraged now, he ravaged more of them, until only one remained.

She is...

He sprang forward, bearing it down and destroying it in an explosion
of rotting giblets. But faintly, in his mind, he heard the final
word.

Broken.

He stood panting heavily, trying to purge the voice from his mind,
but the words continued to echo just beyond his grasp. Disturbed now,
he got his bearings and headed to the inn, falling on the creatures
from behind and allowing the defending monks time to regroup.

He pushed through and surveyed the area. It seemed relatively
peaceful now that the main attack had been beaten back. Suddenly a
wave of dizziness washed over him, the events of the past days
catching up to overwhelm him. Exhausted, he crawled into a narrow
nook between a shrub and the back wall of the inn, and, despite the
sha and their insidious taunts, tumbled into sleep.